chance

Probability was tied up with questions of law and exchange in one other crucial respect. Chance and
risk, in aleatory contracts, provided a justification for lending at interest, and hence a way of avoiding Christian prohibitions against usury. Lenders, the argument went, were like investors; having shared the
risk, they deserved also to share in the gain. For this reason, ideas of chance had...

religious faith

...is for many people such an option, and James claimed that they have the right to make the positive decision to believe and to proceed in their lives on that basis. Either choice involves unavoidable
risks: on the one hand the
risk of being importantly deluded and on the other the
risk of missing a limitlessly valuable truth. In this situation each individual is entitled to decide which
risk to...